Maybe a native cantonese speaker could correct me, but I'm pretty sure you're talking about the slang 索油 "sok3 yau2" literally meaning "suck up oil," which has the meaning of to make out or to mess around.

(uh did I get the tone on yau right, not sure whether there has 變音. also I just looked up 變音 in the dictionary and found a Sanskrit word "Sandhi" which means to come together, I remember seeing it before in a Chinese linguistics context and not really being sure what it was doing there. As an Indian I am proud that our old language could contribute to English, but I just find it a little odd.)

Terrence wrote:
> ngok1 or ok1 means to kiss, but it is not popular now.

Thanks, how about this...

I have found in two Cantonese dictionaries a colloquial word 'ngok6' meaning "to perk up the head" -- character 咢(1977) or [岳+貝](1999) -- short for fixed expression 'ngok6 gou1 tau4' 咢高頭.

Is it possible that my wife is saying 'ok' as a contraction of this 'ngok6', and thinks that it means "kiss" (when she is really directing the child to raise her head to be kissed)? Or am I off base here?

Sorry that I can't give you a confirmed character for ngok1, but as I mentioned 啞 has an ancient pronounciation as ngok, and it's related to baby talk and laugh. This may explain why it is always with baby when using ngok to mean kiss. (just guess)

As a native cantonese speaker , I can surely answer your question rathpy.
People do speak '錫' for the spoken word 'kiss' in cantonese and use '吻' in written form. I never heard a couple saying "i love u , can I '吻' you"in spoken form. People always use "can I '錫' you" in the statement. Sorry for my bad english~
作為一位以廣東話為母語的講者 , rathy,我可以非常肯定回答你的問題。 在廣東話中,人們通常說話時會講"錫"來代表英文字'kiss', 而書寫時就會以"吻"此字來代表。我從來都沒有聽過一對情侶在談情時會說 "我愛你, 我可否吻你嗎"。人們永遠都只會說 "我可以錫你嗎"。